A time to dance

One of our favorite days of the year is Princess P's dance recital days. She has grown and matured so much since she started dancing. Her teacher teaching them Godly traits and encourages them to be "girls of grace" each week. We are so thankful to have found someone to partner on this journey with who helps back up what we are teaching at home...plus the dancing (we don't do that part at home)!

P has come so far in her dancing too. It was so much fun to watch her preform this past weekend. All the girls (and boys) are growing up and getting so much better. And she absolutely loves it. After each semester, I ask her if she wants to do it again, even if no friends are doing it with her. It is always a resounding YES.

She didn't want to do ballet this year and did tap/jazz. Their recital piece was jazz and so fun. Christmas Love was the song and they did so great!

I love that she smiles the whole time. She loves every minute up there and doesn't get nervous at all. She doesn't get that from me!

I love how confident she is up there, and in life in general. A few weeks ago, a girl was visiting our church with her friend and told her her lips were too big and looked funny. She talked about that for a few days to me - mentioning it here and there with little things like, "That was weird that she said that, right?" I know she thought about it. Which ticked me off, really. What right did this girl have to make her think she looks funny? We had a nice talk about how God made her beautiful and she is just that. Beautiful. And also about how it can hurt other people's feelings to say things about them, even if they aren't true. She hasn't mentioned it since and I don't think she is still thinking about it (she tends to say whatever she is thinking to me!). She is confident in herself and is ok with others not liking her. I'm proud of her beauty - inside and out! Love you Princess. Keep on dancing for Jesus.

Oh Happy Day...Happy Birthday!

I can't believe that this little dude is 11 today.

He is funny, smart, kind, loving, handsome, thoughtful, caring, loves Jesus and thinks of others before himself. We are so very proud of the young man he is becoming and can't wait to see what the next years hold.

Happy Birthday, Terrific T. You are amazing and we love you so much!

I wish I could cook

Or rather, I wish I had the desire to cook.  I would love to have all whole, healthy foods here but I really do suck at cooking and no one will eat when I make "good" stuff. Honestly, it usually tastes horrible so I don't blame them.

You probably wonder what my point is?

Today, T wanted to play xbox so I told him he could, but he couldn't find the TV remote (black remote on the black couch - it was sitting right there we later found out). He freaked the freak out. Like ranting and pacing and throwing everything and just CRAZY. I tried to talk him down and he just kept yelling at me and when I told him he was being mean to me so I wasn't going to help any more, he screamed, "I DON"T CARE!" then asked me to help him. He was making no sense at all and just so hateful.

Just like when he has red40. :o/

I gave him some fish oil and Cedarwood (both just in case one worked faster than the other!) and sent him to sit on my bed and fold clothes. Hey, don't judge! I might as well get some benefits out of this craziness, Jack!

He fussed about that for a while but then was fine and wanted to play xbox. He wasn't thrilled when I told him that wasn't happening anymore, but took it ok.

Then at dinner, he was very quiet and just sad. He must have been thinking through it all because he said, "Does hot chocolate have red40 in it?" He knew he wasn't being himself and figured it out. I'm so proud of him! It doesn't, but it must have something. We eat Krispy Kreme donuts at church on Sunday mornings and after he was consistently getting in trouble on Sunday afternoon at home, we decided that there must be something in there that is bothering him too. It's all the same behavioral reaction, but I'm not sure what is causing it. He hasn't eaten donuts in over a month and surprise...hasn't been in trouble on Sunday afternoons either. Nothing we have here normally bothers him so this was strange today.

I'm going to try to figure out what the common factor is here. "artificial flavors" is what my gut says, but I need to look into it all. I have some natural hot chocolate here, but didn't even think to have him have that. He always checks for artificial colors, since red40 and caramel color do the same things to him, but now I guess we need to start looking further.

I hate that he gets like this because he is always so remorseful after and I know he wouldn't freak out on his own. He's not like that.

We are slowing making changes and will continue to do so, but until then, I wish someone would just do all my cooking...and cleaning. And I really wish companies would stop putting artificial crap in our foods so I could continue to be lazy and buy them!

Young Living Essential Oils

We are certainly not the most health conscience people on the planet. I don't exercise anywhere near as much as I need to. We eat out more than we should and I can eat an entire box of Four Cheese Cheez-It crackers in one sitting. By myself.

So, when there are little things that we can do to help our family have better health, I jump on those. We drink water kefir most days (now that I got a new starter from my sister's mother-in-law...I managed to kill mine a while back). We have used homeopathic remedies as often as possible the past few years and aren't big on taking medicine.

When I heard about essential oils, I was interested but skeptical. I ordered some that were cheap off a whole foods type site and we started using them. I got peppermint and lavender since I heard they were the must haves. They worked ok, but not great, so I quit using them. Then a friend told me about Young Living. Their oils are 100% awesome. But really, read here about their quality. It is apples and oranges to every other essential oil company. They are more expensive than the others I bought, but I decided to give it a try and see if it was worth it. I bought a kit that had 10 different oils in it and we loved them. We used at least some of them every day. Coincidentally, the kit is call the everyday oils kit - lol. When I was going to order it, instead of paying full price, I signed up as a distributor so I could get 24% off. There is no charge to sign up, you just have to buy the kit (includes the everyday kit, plus a diffuser, stress away, which is one of my fave oils, and other samples and literature for less than the everyday kit is retail!), then you can order as much or as little as you want. There are several other cheaper kits too, but this one seems like the best deal to me since I wanted to try all these oils anyway and it came with a free diffuser. Score!

These are the oils that come in the everyday kit, plus they recently added "Joy."  I think Joy smells horrible so haven't used it much, but apparently if it stinks to you, you need it. Hmmmm....I might try it on my feet or somewhere I won't smell it and see what happens.

Since getting that first kit, we have been ordering each month. This stuff works, guys! Not to get too personal, but I had started having some wicked monthly visits, but have been able to get them back to normal using oils. My doctor joked, "When you get tired of rubbing oils on yourself, give me a call and we will do an ablation." Ummm...I'll stick with putting a drop or two of oil on my wrist each morning, thanks!

We have been able to support all of our body systems with these little bottles of yumminess.  It works! I'm not even kidding.

I have been drinking lemon in my water for a few months and haven't had pop since. Well, once or twice, but I haven't craved it or bought it for myself. 

The options are endless. I get a head/chest cold every year at this time. It started a couple of days ago but I rubbed some oils on before bed to support my immune system and woke up fine in the morning. Big Daddy was out of town when he got his annual head cold and it lasted over a week. We both always get them - I'm amazed that mine cleared it up so quickly.

OK, I'll quit going on and on, but if you want more info, let me know. I have no interest in selling this...I just don't have the time...so I'm just giving you my discount if you want it. If you want to order anything and are local, let me know and I'm ordering tomorrow so can add it in and you can get the 24% off and won't have to pay shipping. If you are not local and want to order, I can order it for you (still get the 24% off but you pay the shipping) or you can sign up and be able to order for yourself. You won't be disappointed!

Do you use Young Living already? What are your favorites? I'd love to hear some stories from you!

Snow day!

The kids were pumped to wake up to this today!

They are now back inside, nice and warm, and eating snow ice cream. Yum! We are very disappointed that our CC Christmas program for tonight had to be canceled, but this is a good consolation prize. ;)